Add a battery-saving,

Add a battery-saving, E Ink display to your phone for $79

BYTimothy J. Seppala @timseppala1 hour ago

One of the drawbacks inherent with our variety of smart devices is short battery life, but the folks behind the InkCase Plus think they have the solution for perhaps the most-used gadget in your arsenal: your phone. The InkCase Plus hits Kickstarter today, and like its name suggests, it’s a folio case for your phone that packs an always-on E Ink display. If this sounds kinda familiar, that’s because the company launched something similar last year for the iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S II. Now, however, it’s available for the Galaxy S5 (or whatever other phone models get at least 500 votes from the pledging community), packs Bluetooth low-energy connectivity and it can act as a modular second screen, with access to apps and notifications. The campaign page promises 18 hours of reading time thanks to the energy-miserly nature of e-paper, and that you can transfer the likes of boarding passes and shopping lists to it too. Sounds pretty handy, yeah?

This type of kit hasn’t set the world on fire before, though — nor have phones with the tech baked in from the factory — and because of its proprietary SDK, developers don’t really have an incentive to make compatible apps unless the InkCase takes off like, say, the Pebble smartwatches did. But if you’re still interested and have a spare $79, the Kickstarter page is but a click away